


The Tenderness of Mortality

by Akiko_Natsuko



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: (sort of), Character Death, Character Study, Death, Falling In Love, Feelings Realization, M/M, Questioning, life and death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27659345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akiko_Natsuko/pseuds/Akiko_Natsuko
Summary: Death was many things, Thanatos was more. Death was many things, and he was death.Zagreus changed that.
Relationships: Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 79





	The Tenderness of Mortality

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that if you want to talk to me about my fics and writing, or anime/shows/games in general then you can now find me on discord [The Unholy Trinity](https://discord.gg/vxTVpefYyB).

Death was many things. It was the chill of deep winter sunk deep in the earth, the echo of lost voices on whispering winds, the space between one breath and nothingness. It was fleeting and eternal. Quiet at times, a whisper, a flutter of breath, a caress in the night. Other times death screamed a challenge against life, a bell ringing out against the night as it fought tooth and nail to claim what belonged to it. Some would call it merciful, a blessing, a release; while others would rail against death and call it cruel and unfair, curse its name.

Death was many things, Thanatos was more.

Death Incarnate, he was as death, fleeting as his scythe flashed out and eternal as was the way of Gods. He had seen worlds pass, reaped the souls and the echoes of those lifetimes, heard their stories, collected them, hoarded them as a dragon would hoard gold. For death was the ending and the beginning, memory and forgetfulness, and his memory was long, his life longer still, and he considered it his job to stand as a testament to the lives he claimed. He knew how others saw him, some greeting him with relief, welcoming him, others fearing him and fleeing before the chill and gong that heralded his arrival. He had been called many things over the years, had been what they said, more times than he could count, and made his peace with it.

Death was many things, and he was death.

Zagreus changed that.

The first time he had met the younger God’s mis-matched eyes, he’d felt it, a sliver of warmth that had threatened to break apart his chill. It wasn’t want, not then at least. No, it had felt like the coming of spring after a long, dark winter. A single beam of sunlight breaking through the endless dark, or a seedling pushing its way into the world. It was the promise of life, one that trembled against his presence, but didn’t hide away from it even as some part of him reached out, hungry, yearning, drawn to that flickering spark of life. Instead, he’d all but fled before it, burying himself in his work, in his nature and trying to ignore the whisper in the back of his mind that wasn’t the echo of lost voices, but rather the echo of an unspoken promise.

He should have known that it would not end there, should have seen it in the glittering eyes that had watched him flee that day, or in the rumours that flowed through the Underworld that the Prince was trying to escape.

It had been inevitable in the end.

He hadn’t been expecting their next meeting to be when Zagreus was teetering on the precipice of death, clutching to the threads of life, not through fear but some determination that Thanatos hadn’t understood at the time. Clinging on through agony, and fading warmth, until Thanatos had reached his side. Their eyes meeting far too fleetingly before he had claimed the young Prince, and for a moment he could have sworn that there was triumph in the mis-matched eyes before death had been victorious. That had been the first meeting, it hadn’t been the last, for the Underworld was vast and full of dangers that not even the son of Hades was immune too, even with the aid of the Gods.

Each time, Zagreus was with him whether fighting beside him or lying there waiting, always clinging stubbornly to life until he came for him, Thanatos felt that sliver of warmth. At first, it was an irritation, or so he told himself, a disturbance in himself because he was death and the warmth shouldn’t be able to touch him like that, to make him quiver deep within himself. Later it changed, not quite an irritation anymore, but not a comfort, not something he sought out. That was a lie. He knew that the day he first appeared before Zagreus before he was summoned or needed. Bowed beneath the truth of it the day he reached out with trembling fingers not to reap, but to soothe, to comfort, to cradle that warmth and the last stubborn flicker of life for a little longer, even though he knew the other would return.

It wasn’t life as he’d first thought it was, or not quite. Rather it was the tenderness of mortality because Zagreus returned again and again, whether he was taken by the scythe or whatever twist of fate had taken him this time. Chased the chill of death and the balm of life. Fell right into Thanatos’ embrace each time, and did so with a smile, and a welcome in his eyes, even as pain clouded his features and his lifeblood leaked away.

It touched him because Zagreus wanted it to, had done since that first meeting. Because Zagreus looked at him with eyes that saw more than death, that cut through fleeting moments to eternity to see Thanatos as he was in the here and now, and Thanatos hated and loved him for that. No, not hated. He didn’t think he’d ever had it in him to hate Zagreus even when he had fled that warmth in the beginning. Fear was perhaps a more accurate word – fear of what Zagreus could do to who he was, the change he had sensed in the air, that had now taken root in his heart. Fear for how much he wanted that change, how much he craved that warmth, how much he had come to care – no love – Zagreus.

For the first time, he was more than death and less…

And for the first time, as he held Zagreus cradled close to his chest, as though he could shelter the flicker of life just a little longer. Blood-specked lips brushed against his mouth, smiling despite everything, he thought that maybe death was cruel…

…and where did that leave him?


End file.
